How many hours will we spend wrestling a Christmas turkey this year before calling on assistance from our very own Delia?

You know, that woman in a pinny who successfully basted the wretched bird and served it up on Christmas Day year after year without Auntie M&S to provide the stuffing? How did our mothers do that? In exactly the same way as us, it seems.

She asked her mum. According to a new survey, the most influential person in a girl’s life, and also her best friend, is the woman who brought her into the world. As needy kids, we took her undivided attention for granted and rejected it as petulant teenagers when, in our adolescent arrogance, we’d cruelly observe: “I didn’t ask to be born.”

But regardless of strops and fallouts it seems, once we emerge battered and bruised from the harsh realities of life outside, we realise no one can love us more unconditionally than a mum.

If this sounds like a hymn to mothers it’s because this week, those of us lucky enough to have one, will drive long distances or board trains and planes to share Christmas with them.

We’ll battle snow, freezing fog and ice to find a way home because despite the commercialism we know the day isn’t about gifts and extravagance but family, tradition and honouring a debt of love.

That’s why our hearts go out to the thousands trapped on both sides of the Channel waiting for a Eurostar train which won’t be arriving any time soon.

As an excuse, “the wrong sort of air” doesn’t really wash when your best-laid plans are thrown into chaos and the only feasible route out of France is an overnight ferry to Hull.

And then what? From Hull in a handcart, anyone?

I’ll be joining the throng at London’s King’s Cross this week to travel north by train and, as usual, it’ll be overcrowded, uncomfortable and noisy.

But the staff will be wearing Santa hats, young lads, some of them homecoming soldiers, will mob the bar and sing their own raucous version of the Toon anthem, Blaydon Races.

No one will complain, whinge or moan because to be anything other than charitable or good-humoured would seem churlish.

Christmas brings out something in the British psyche we rarely see — a generosity of spirit and an unselfishness in our attitudes.

Older passengers will be helped with their bags and, once again, I’ll remember how my dad, sicker than we ever knew, thought nothing of making that train journey to be with me.

There’ll be a poignant moment when Mum and I raise a glass to him — we’ll talk about the past because it’s shared experiences, memories and history that make a family.

And even when, as they almost certainly will, tempers get frayed we’ll be quick to forgive. (I might even concede my mother is always right, though I can’t promise.)

I’m conscious, as I write this, that some aren’t fortunate enough to have families and once again, we’re reminded how good people will be giving up their own time to help the needy.

For all our cynicism we still live in a society where the Christian values of tolerance, generosity and forgiveness prevail.

And though I won’t be going to church I will be thanking God I’ve got a mum to go home to.

I know too many who’d give anything to be able to say the same, not to be truly grateful.